We’re having a lazy Sunday morning over here (the best) after a pretty full week of everything.

Inda and Loony and Indy and Luna and I went out to the greenway back by the old Wench house on a rather gray day so the dogs could get out some energy.

Pretty sure this is what Pooh and Piglet would look like if they were dogs!

It was pretty eventful since Luna, who HATES water, tried to follow Indy across a creek and got herself stuck. Rather than helping her, which is what kind and normal people would do, I sat there, laughed and took a short video of her trials.

Don’t worry, she figured it out and is safe and sound and was only a little traumatized from the water.

I also hit up the library for some quality people watching paper writing time. Also I needed to try out some of the other kooky chairs. Priorities y’all .

Then, Steve and I decided to go work out. Smart idea right?? Wrong.

Since it’s been a while since we’ve visited the gym, we both tried to make up for lost time by working out extra hard. Bad idea.

I ran so hard I gave myself heartburn and other gastric issues. Apparently 9mph is pretty fast?? Steve overdid it on the leg press and strained his knee a bit. I was going to do a bit of strength training after the run but couldn’t function/breathe so I went and sat in the sauna until I could walk around without dying.

This is my “Oops WTF did I just do” face.

We grabbed some beers with Matt and Lisa decided to not move again for the rest of the night.

So it’s been pretty quiet over here on the blog but it definitely has been anything but quiet in real life! As of last Friday, we are now a 12-legged family….

This cutie is Luna! She’s about 11 weeks old right now and is a very exciting addition to the Steve/Amanda household. Indy has adjusted about as well as could be expected….

Especially since she’s Luna’s new favorite chew toy, but overall they really get along well! Indy has taken on the role of “Mama Dog” and is intent on showing Luna what’s what in life. Indy has also taken on the role of treat thief and shameless beggar whenever Luna is around, so we gotta work on that a bit.

In people news, Steve had reconstructive surgery on his ACL that he tore in Prague. It’s been my job to dispense ice and narcotics at regular intervals for the last week or so.

Since Steve is out of commission (he’s just now starting to hobble around on crutches) puppy wrangling/herding has been my new 24/7 job in addition to my grad school job and my Steve’s caretaker/”responsible adult” job. It’s a lot to take on at once and I haven’t slept much, but every dog and Steve is worth it!

I’m just going to finish off this post with a bunch more pictures of Luna because the world needs more puppy pictures!

She has questionable sleeping techniques…

But she sure is cute! And we can’t wait for her to get old enough to not annoy Indy 😉

We had a pretty fun weekend mostly spent traumatizing Indy (in the best way, I promise it’s good for her).

We forced her to socialize at the new Raleigh Beer Garden on Friday. They have 366 beers on tap! It’s pretty freakin sweet.

On Saturday, I took her on a super long walk after I ran some hills outside which was a horrible idea in July.

But the best part was Sunday…

Steve and I drove out to Lake Wheeler to test out Indy’s new life jacket! It is totes adorbs. And by that I mean she hates it and it’s hilarious to watch her hate it.

It even comes with handles so we can pick her up like this!

We got this for her, because she really likes to swim in the summer to cool off, but she tends to freak out if she can’t touch the bottom of the lake/stream/river. So, this gives her a little extra boost to feel more comfortable in the water.

As with most things though. Indy hated it and was terrified of it at first.

She even ignored fresh salmon!

Just look at that indignant face. That is total sass.

One box of smoked salmon later, she had her longest swim and didn’t need any encouragement to jump in and swim around! #success

We are just now getting a minor amount of sanity back after the site visit void. For the last couple of weeks, Steve and I have been working some insane hours to get things ready for the ASSIST 3rd year review from NSF. While we get reviewed every year, the 3rd and 6th years are key review years where NSF determines if they will continue our funding. AKA everything breaks and shit hits the ceiling over the span of 12 hrs

Needless to say, the blog has been a little neglected. So has most every other aspect of our lives (sorry Indy). So, even though the site visit shenanigans finished up on Thursday, we have spent the last two days sleeping, spending time with Indy, and doing normal shit like grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, etc.

As goes with the whole working 15 hrs days for 2 straight weeks thing, my Ironman Raleigh 70.3 training has been GREAT! Wait….that was meant to say nonexistent. I went for a 2 mile run yesterday and thought I was going to die for most of it. Partly from lack of sleep and partly from lack of working out for 2.5 weeks. This means I’m not sure if I’m actually going to do the race. I don’t feel prepared and I’m still recovering from lack of sleep and extremely high levels of stress. I’ve decided to take it one day at a time and see how I feel morning of.

On a happy note, all the work and struggles and sleepless nights and broken equipment and last minute panic was worth it because the ASSIST Center passed our 3rd year review with UNANIMOUS AND UNCONDITIONAL TERMS! Basically we were perfect and have raised the bar for what NSF expects of their engineering research centers. We were all so excited that we went to the only place that serves alcoholic beverages on campus, the golf course!

Please ignore the look of crazed exhaustion/delirium that’s on our faces. We are actually super happy.

In other exciting news, Indy has learned how to jump faceplant off a dock! It only took us actually throwing her into the lake about 5 times before she got the hang of it 🙂

Maybe one day she’ll get the hang of it. Until then we will continue to post embarrassing pictures of her faceplanting into the water and she will continue to silently resent us 🙂